But if I must wash-up, if I must study the
idiosyncrasies of cold fat, treacly plates, frying-pans which have
sizzled dripping-toast on the gas-ring, frozen gravy, and pudding-basins
with burnt milk-skins filmed to their sides, I shall be comparatively
undismayed. For sandpaper is not yet (like the news posters) abolished;
and soda--although I hear its price has risen several hundred per
cent.--is still cheaper than, say, diamonds.
IV
A "HUT" HOSPITAL
People have curious ideas of the kind of building which would make a
good war hospital. "The So-and-So Club in Pall Mall," I have been told,
"should have been commandeered long ago. Ideal for hospital purposes. Of
course some of the M.P. members brought influence to bear, and the War
Office was choked off...." And so forth.
It would surprise me to hear of anything that the War Office was held
back from doing if it wanted to do it. Perhaps the least likely
obstructionist to be successful in this project would be a
club-frequenting M.P. The War Office has taken exactly and precisely
what it chose--even when it would have been better to choose otherwise.
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